Testament, and Candidus Arianus to Marius;"--and that on another
occasion shortly afterwards he acknowledges the receipt of "his copy
of Pliny," which had been in the custody of the same Abbot. Still less
does it consist with the commonly adopted notions of his selfish
tyranny, that he should address Bryan de Insula in terms like the
following: "Know that we are quite willing that our chief barons,
concerning whom you wrote to us, may hunt while passing through your
bailiwick, provided that you know who they are and what they take; for
we do not keep our forests, nor our beasts, for our own use only, but
for the use also of our faithful subjects. See, however, that they are
well guarded on account of robbers, for the beasts are more frightened
by robbers than by the aforesaid barons." Of the reign of Henry III.
the particulars are still more minute. Notwithstanding its connexion
with superstitions which exist no longer, we may sympathize with the
pious charity that suggested that monarch's order "for feeding as many
poor persons as can enter the greater and lesser hall at Westminster
on Friday next after the octaves of St. Matthew, being the anniversary
of Eleanor, the King's sister, formerly Queen of Scotland, for the
good of the said Eleanor's soul." His taste for the fine arts, and his
encouragement of its professors, are frequently to be traced in the
entries upon these rolls. In one of them he gives directions for
having the great chamber at Westminster painted with a good green
colour after the fashion of a curtain; and in the great gable of the
same chamber near the door this device to be painted,--"Ke ne dune ke
ne tine, ne prent ke desire;" and another runs thus,--"The King, in
presence of Master William the painter, a monk of Westminster, lately
at Winchester, contrived and gave orders for a certain picture to be
made at Westminster in the wardrobe where he was accustomed to wash
his face, representing the King who was rescued by his dogs from the
seditions which were plotted against that King by his subjects,